Shoes etc
by scholastik
Summary: 5 great pair of shoes Cuddy's owned.


**Title**: Shoes etc.  
**Author**: scolastik  
**Beta**: vicodinaddict  
**Rating**: R  
**Spoilers**: Until 511  
**Disclaimer**: Everything is David Shore's property, and I'm just playing ;-)

**Warning:** The scene which makes this fic R is the start of an agression, so just be warned  
**N/A:** Written for the house of fanfic contest, with no intention to win at all, just playing and having fun. Thanks for the feedback I got along the way.  
Prompt was Cuddy: Five great pairs of shoes she's owned.

**I - Blue vs. Pink (the boots)**

7 year-old Lisa Cuddy had a few ideas of her own. Like: she had hated these shoes from the second her mother had bought them. They were blue fluffy boots with butterflies on the side. She would have loved them if it hadn't been for Shayla Garland. Lately, she had started a little gang in the playground. If you didn't wear flashy pink boots with white daisies you couldn't join the Daisy Club and Lisa really wanted to enter the club.

She had explained all of this to her mother, but she had said there were no more pinks and no matter what she thought or wanted she couldn't go play in the cold without the blue ones.

So she had worn the blue boots and hadn't enter the club. She still had friends, she just wasn't one of the coolest girls around.

On one Hanukkah morning, one month later, she had found fluffy bright pink boots, exactly the kind Shayla requested to be in the club. There had been screams, laughters and she was sure she loved her boots more than any other Hanukkah presents she had ever got. She had gone back to school pretty excited, ready to become one of Shayla's friends. She just hadn't expected her to be such a annoying brat, especially towards her friends. Lisa dealt with it two days before ditching her brand new pink and going back to wearing the blue ones.

She never really told her mother why the pink boots didn't last for more than a week, she babbled something like "they're not as cool as what I thought they would", not ready to admit the whole truth already.

However, thirty years later, each time she saw fluffy blue boots she remembered her own early decision that she would rather go alone and being seen as different than being treated like a piece of shit.

**II - self-esteem cf. high heels**

These were only crimson-red high-heeled shoes, nothing special about them, except for the fact they weren't hers and they looked as if someone had run the marathon wearing them.

She had picked up her dress for prom long before June, she had just turned 16 and her mother had agreed to buy her the one she really wanted. She had spent March, browsing Fashion magazines selecting the right one and buying it. She wanted to do it before the finals. This way she got to be pretty and superficial for Prom and smart and successful in class. She was determined to prove wrong the ones who told "you can't have it all".

And there she was in her bedroom getting ready to leave for the party, amazingly beautiful as some would surely say it but shoe-less. Two minutes before she had realised the ones she had planned to wear were way too small. And even though the French say "one must suffer to be beautiful", she wasn't ready to go down that road. She stood there for ten long minutes, blankly staring at the mirror. Nodding rapidly when her mother came to tell he, her date was waiting for her downstairs.

She immediately spotted the problem. No wonder Lisa told herself, the woman spent her time looking for what she could improve in "this stubborn head of hers". She did love her, very much. Though sometimes she wishes she could be satisfied the way she was. Lisa had her own high standars, she couldn't deal with them and the ones her mother was setting up for her, especially when the later seem to drift always further away from the first.

However, this evening she was thankful she didn't have to explain what it was all about, and why she couldn't possibly go downstairs like this. She left the room, and Lisa sigh, relieved, she wouldn't have to go explain to her date why she couldn't come tonight. She was beginning undoing her hair, one pick in her hand when her mother came back to her bedroom, carrying one used carton box. She took a crimson pair of high-heeled shoes out of it.

"I was wearing them when I got engaged to your father... Not that I'm expecting you to marry the shiny knight waiting for you downstairs, but you could use them tonight. Be careful, though, I still fancy these shoes very much."

Lisa had smiled, felt like Cinderella when the shoes had proven to be just the right size, thanked her mother once again and left for the party with her impatient date.

Everything had went well, until just before midnight. Her date was supposed to drive her home. He had just got his license and he seemed to enjoy this whole charming prince act. Lisa had been rather annoyed by it to begin with. But getting a ride home was pretty cool and why would she complain so much about a boy who seemed to care very much about her.

The problem was, after a ten-minute drive she started wondering where he was driving to.

"Relax! I'm taking a shorter road."

He had used the condescending tone, the one who was saying "You're a woman, just let me handle these things".

"Yeah, right I'm pretty sure the shorter road was turning right when you turned left, five minutes ago."

She had tried not to sound bitchy, she just needed a good night sleep and wasn't looking forward to getting lost in the middle of nowhere.

"Let me handle this, would you? I know exactly where I'm driving." He snapped back.

From then on Lisa had kept quiet not wanting to upset him any further, he was a new driver maybe there were places he didn't really like to go with his car.

When he puled over five minutes later on a dark Mac Donald's parking space though, she knew something was up and she had the feeling she wasn't going to like it. He looked at her, a smile on his face.

"Isn't it better than home here?"

He gave her a warm smile and reached for the zipper of her dress, gropping her breast in the meantime. She would have jumped back if she could but the car was small and there wasn't enough place to back out. She had screamed though:

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Come on you can't tell me you don't want this too, everything about you screams desire." He answered in a hushed voice. He had moved from her back to her knees and was trying to pull up her dress. She made a strong move to free herself from his grasp, but he did not let her go.

"Come on Lisa, if you step out of this car, we're gonna be over, you know that, you really want to throw what we have in the garbage? It's gonna be good, I promise, you know I will never hurt you. I love you so much Lisa." He had used his gentle tone, the one she had trouble resist to.

She loved him too, she just didn't feel ready for this. But maybe she was wrong, maybe deep down she was ready. And she wouldn't want to mess-up this ... He had told her he loved her. So she had relaxed, letting him touch her in places she hadn't allowed anyone to go until now.

"You see, that's better. I knew you would love this too."

He took a break from her body, unfastening his jeans, and Lisa had time to think about what was happening, she had never imagined her first-time would take place in such settings and the more she thought about it, the more she realised she couldn't possibly do it.

So she opened the car's door and left before his **ex**-boyfriend could possibly realize what had happened.

This night she walked ten miles on her mother's high heels, coming home exhausted to her distressed and worried mother. She never brought herself to talk about what had happened this night.

Her mother had given her the ruined crimson shoes a few years later. She had put them away in the back of her shoes' cupboard. Every once in a while, when she was looking for another pair or simply when she was tidying things up, she would catch a glimpse of their bright red and remember how hard it has been to stay true to herself.

**III - High Heels come back!**

It was after two long weeks in her new office on the first floor of one the best teaching hospital in the country that Lisa Cuddy realized she had made it. She was Dean of Medicine in a major hospital, second youngest one ever hired, first woman … She knew all of this of course, people couldn't stop repeating her how great it was. She knew it, but the realization was something else. Suddenly being aware of all the responsibilities she was now expected to take. She couldn't help but feel a little out of place.

She always had known how to dress and act in certain types events, balancing charm and discretion to create her own successful secret cocktail. Being Dean wasn't about looking good in front of your superiors though, or potential employees it wasn't about impressing your peers. Now she was the one in charge and people she had to impress were big sharks, people with lots of money and only a handful of reasons to spend it on improving her hospital. Not only had she to impress them but she had to do it while keeping the respect of her subordinates. She knew this feeling would go away, her job was great and she would get used to the decorum included in the packag. In the meantime she would have to deal with it.

Clearly, the job has its own special perks and it didn't take her much time to discover them. One week later she had to go to Manhattan to meet a potential donor, she was a very eccentric old lady. She was living on the Upper-East-Side, refused to go anywhere passed the Hudson. In any other situation, Cuddy would have given up on the donation but she couldn't afford to turn her back on this insane amount of money she was proposing. 2 million dollars were certainly worth a trip to New York even if it meant losing a whole Thursday afternoon. As expected the new hospital godmother proved herself to be a chatty old lady, who'd been collecting stories waiting for a public ready to listen to it, Cuddy was working very hard not to interrupt her. Half-way through Tobbie the cat's adventures though, she cleared her throat and tried to start talking about the money. Surprisingly and fortunately, it didn't take too much to convince her not to donate her money exclusively to the "sick babies doctors" because "nothing was sadder than a dying baby". Every donation was good to take, obviously ,but in one month Cuddy had understood that Cancer battle and Babies were far more popular among her donors than any other rare diseases.

She was finished with the meeting a lot sooner than she had expected and that left her with two whole hours of being on her own in Manhattan … She could have gone back to work but she wasn't feeling like reading the oncology report she had been meaning to comment in the next board-meeting. However, as she was leaving the old lady's apartment, her eyes were caught by a familiar logo proudly carried on some very rich looking woman's bag.

This logo lead her straight to a very well-known boutique. Only to look had she promised herself. Then … things had gone out of hand and somehow two hours later she was back in Princeton, a brand new pair of Louboutin's high heels shoes on the front seat of her car, and significantly less money in her Hawaï holiday savings.

These were the first obscenely expansive designer shoes she'd ever bought to herself, without thinking about it and hesitating or promising herself to come back when there would be sales …

A few years later, she was still wearing them on some important fundraisers or particularly hard to bear hospital social events. They were her own personal lucky charm. Even with a hundred pairs at home this one was still the one she picked when she needed to emphasize her independence …

**IV - Running**

It had been an exhausting day. The kind of day verifying every single word of Murphy's law. Rachel had caught a nasty cold, a few days earlier, and the baby couldn't sleep through the night, breaking Cuddy's already fragile sleep pattern. She was burning up and hurting, and Cuddy couldn't help but feel helpless at the sight of her sick baby.

Unfortunately she couldn't allow herself to skip work. June was called "deadlines-month" at Princeton. She had to check every scholarship application, new programs were waiting to be approved and the list was going on and on and on. She also had to cope with House's absence, they were still getting a lot of last-chance diagnosis requests, and in order to justify his department budget for next year, she had to accept some of them. She had put Foreman and Chase in charge, giving them a double-head direction. In theory, Chase was the head of department (there was no way she could have given it to Foreman after the clinical trial fiasco), but every radical change in the course of treatments had to be approved by both doctors. It wasn't working so bad, if you didn't count today of course. They had started one of their childish argument over the importance of a surgery. Of course she had been caught in the middle of their so called "life-threatening crisis" leaving her no choice but to postpone the board meeting. Then she had had to deal with the cranky board members who had been forced to stay later than they had expected and had made a point of disagreeing with everything she was suggesting.

Yes, this had been an exhausting day. That's why she wasn't particularly enthusiastic when she saw the _RoadRunner_ package down her hall. Rachel was crying, her nanny seemed relieved to see her, glad to pass her burden along. She had hoped she would be able to try them the moment they would arrived. She hadn't expected to be so tired the day her brand new kick-ass pair of runners would be delivered to her place.

She gave the box a long glance before turning towards her baby. There was a bath to give, and lots of attention to make her baby girl forget about her sore-throat and achy nose. Putting her exhaustion aside wasn't always easy, but when she managed to block out all the stress of her day, she really enjoyed taking care of her baby. Today though, it was difficult, Rachel was feeling bad and no matter how gentle Cuddy tried to be, the baby wouldn't stop whining. There was no point on putting her to bed, she settled for the walking-thing, she was carrying her around walking through every room, movement was the only thing calming her.

Rachel finally fell asleep while she was going through the living room to the kitchen for the third time. A rested little smile on the baby's face. It probably wouldn't last the night but for now silence was filling her house. Still carrying her daughter, Cuddy went picking up her package. Settling down in her sofa she began wrapping him open, the brand new girly Air Max 09 were waiting for her inside.

They were everything she had expected, pink, silver and sparkling, a true call to running. She had ordered them as a treat. These days she couldn't find time to go running , and she had thought getting some obscenely pricy sport shoes would somehow make the running happen. Sitting here, her baby carefully tucked in her arms, holding shoes in her other hand she was now realizing once again she wouldn't get her old life magically. There were new responsibilities and new rewards.

It took her a week to find time to christen these new shoes. It was a slow night at the hospital and Wilson had come babysitting Rachel. Running in the evening light, Cuddy had appreciate every single second of her time alone. It was all about taking time for herself after all and Damn it! These shoes were the best runners she had ever wear!

**V - Another set of baby-shoes**

She had bought these tiny runners a little less than three years ago. After the test had finally turned blue, she had felt happier than she had been in a long time. It was like the first time she bought a stethoscope, the same feeling of enthusiasm. Everything was suddenly possible, and though she wasn't about to reveal to the whole world (or just the hospital, her little microcosm) what was for now only a mere eventuality, she couldn't help but feeling hopeful. House was in physiotherapy after the success of the ketamine treatment, his department might get a little easier to supervise. She wasn't expecting gratitude, nor sanity. Maybe though, his bitterness would have faded away with the pain, letting her take care and love the new life which was growing inside her … Her baby boy … She had always made fun of these "knowing the gender trick" but since she had seen the plus sign on the stick, she was thinking of this tiny human being as a little boy …

It was one on these late July days, sultry weather, she had gone out late in the afternoon to get some fresh evening air. She was wandering around Princeton street, and that's when she saw them, Minty-Ice cream in one hand, bottle of water in the other, she stopped in front of a baby shop. There, they were the cutest runners she'd ever seen. They were light green, a good old teddy bear on the side. She entered the shop and bought them, toddler-size, they didn't have anything else. Back at home she had put the shoes on top of her cupboard, first thing she'd ever buy for her baby. She could already imagine him making his first steps into the world, his tiny feet protected in these little shoes.

Things hadn't gone the way she expected them to go, within a month there had been the miscarriage, then one last failed attempt of IVF … And the Ketamine treatment had failed, House had found himself facing ten-year in a State Prison. She hadn't got rid of the shoes, she was unable to take them out of her cupboard, so they had stayed there for almost three years, untouched, waiting.

When Rachel entered her life Cuddy thought about giving them away, but she couldn't. She knew thinking of her baby boy as Rachel's big brother didn't really match the reality. He only had been one month old when she had lost him, but sometimes when she was feeling a little more sentimental than she normally was she loved imagining them playing together … So the shoes had stayed there for one more long year, until that day of July.

Cuddy was tidying up her bedroom, Rachel playing on the floor carefully unfolding every piece of clothing Cuddy took out of her cupboard. That's when the box fell down, the green teddy bear shoes sliding off the now empty box. They were as cute as she remembered and she wasn't the only one to think so. Rachel immediately seized them and clumsily tried them on, a big smile on her face. She was just twenty-month old and she really loved running around the house.

As Cuddy saw her little girl walk-running away in these tiny shoes, she knew she had been right to keep them. Even though she had always struggled to believe in anything like after-life, bigger power and fate, it was just as if her little boy had just given his little sister his old pair of shoes … A great pair of shoes …


End file.
